According to Plan
by AuzeriGirl
Summary: After years of searching, Levallan had finally found Solas. After making her way to where the Dread Wolf stood, what would he tell her? Would he allow her to follow him in his conquest? Or would the love she had spent so long chasing after remain nothing more than a distant dream? The Dread Wolf has a plan...but he's not the only one with cards on the table. WARNING: SPOILERS.


I was so close. So close. I could hear his voice, I could practically sense his presence. I ran forward, past the hollow stone statues that were once soldiers, past the ancient elven ruins that I normally would have taken so much time to examine and admire. None of it mattered. _Nothing_ mattered but him. The searing hot pain in my hand meant nothing. I could feel it grow stronger; I could feel the power literally sap away at my life. I didn't care, I didn't CARE! After spending so long without him, so long waking up in cold sweats and trembling in an empty bed, I wasn't going to leave without him. No matter what. The memories of everything we had been through came flooding back as I ran.

I remembered the day we met, how he had taken my hand and thrust it into the rift, sealing it. I had turned to him in awe and suspicion, but the moment our eyes met, I could feel my heart skip a beat. His own eyes had widened, just slightly. He looked at me at first like I was some strange and foreign object just waiting to be examined and studied. He continued to look at me like that many times. As we grew closer, I began to learn more about him. His fascination with the Fade and rifts and spirits. How mysterious he was, and how different he was from the elves I had grown up with. He showed me a world in the Fade that was quite literally a beautiful dream. He showed me more love that I could have ever hoped for, though he never once took me to bed. He told me the truths behind falsehoods I had grown up believing. Including the Vallaslin.

Tattoo like markings that my family had placed on me once I turned the proper age. They deemed it a cultural beauty; a way of signifying pride in being an elf. I had taken pride in them myself. And then Solas confessed to me the truth behind the Vallaslin. They were nothing more than slave markings; originally used to brand and mark an elven slave. I was horrified. Everything I knew was a lie. Everything. But with magic and gentle hands, he had swept them away like they had never existed. All it had taken was a thought, and I was cleansed. Suddenly it didn't matter if everything else was a lie. As long as I had him by side, he was the only truth I needed.

But then...

"Ebasit Kata. Itwa-ost."

His voice pierced through the noises around me, and I picked up my pace. A waterfall lay before me but I leaped over it, not letting anything stand in my way. In the distance, I could see what looked to be a giant eluvian. That had to be where he was.

"Maraas Kata!"

A sharp voice answered Solas, one I knew to be the Qunari woman that had started the whole mess and had tried to topple the Inquisition. My hands clenched into fists, but deep down I was grateful. If it wasn't for her, I wasn't sure if I ever would have found him.

I ran up a decaying flight of stairs to get a glimpse of Solas talking to her up on the hill. Even from a distance, I knew. He held himself in a calm and elegant manor, arms behind his back. He looked down at her as if she were no more than a bug. I paused, but only for a moment. The look in his eyes was foreign. Hostile. It was the look of someone who would do anything to achieve his goal. He exuded power and authority.

"Your forces have failed. Leave now, and tell the Qunari to trouble me no further," he said calmly, and turned his back to her as though she were worth not even a moment of his time.

She trembled with rage, and could see the anger and loathing in her eyes. She screamed in fury and raised her spear just as I rose to the plateau they were standing on. I protest rose to my throat and I raised my hand in fear. I opened my mouth, but before I could even warn him, he paused in his stride and the woman suddenly turned to stone, just like the others below. He hadn't even turned around. I felt a moment of fear pass through me.

"Solas?"

He paused. For a moment, I thought he wasn't going to turn around. This really was a stranger before me, someone I had never met. This was not the same man I had fallen in love with. Had I come all of this way, had I come so far, just for him to keep walking? I had searched months. Years. The Inquisition had struggled without me to lead it, but I had left two days after Solas had. Cullen objected and Cassandra called me a number of choice words, but they knew the reason why I couldn't stay. I couldn't rest until I had found him. I had only returned because they had managed to find me and I knew then it must have been something very important.

I wasn't expecting it to lead to this. But here I was, standing before the man I loved. The question was, did he still love me?

And then he turned. It was slow at first, and his eyes were shielded and firm. But the moment they met mine, they softened. I could see a small smile cross his lips in spite of himself. I felt one of my own brush past my lips, and I opened my mouth to speak.

"AHHH!" I cried out in agony, sinking to my knees as my mark flared up in pain. The emerald green light bled brightly out from it. Oh gods it _hurt._ It felt like my entire body was on fire, like my soul was trying to rip itself free of my flesh. I couldn't breath, I could barely even see. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

I looked up to see Solas standing over me. His eyes seemed to flash a stormy gray, and then suddenly my pain had vanished. I gasped for air and turned to look up at him in awe. I slowly rose to my feet, and I saw him smile softly.

"That should give us more time."

I walked with him, and he confessed to me everything. The truth that I couldn't believe. Or maybe I just didn't want to. This whole time, we had been played like fools. We were nothing more than pawns on the chessboard, pieces for him to rule over and decide our fates. Suddenly it all made sense. HE had been the one to lead us to Skyhold. HE had been the one to show me how to seal rifts. He was even the cause of Corpyheus getting the orb. The answer was as plain as day, right in front of us the whole time, but the truth was so abstract we had never even grasped its presence.

Solas, the Dread Wolf, had used us all. And he had done so in an effort to enter the Fade and tear down the Veil, something that he had created to separate the two worlds and protect everyone from the gods. But he hadn't expected the consequences to be so drastic.

But the result of his current plan...this whole world would be destroyed. Thousands, no millions of innocent people would be dead. Gone. They were so blissfully unaware of how their lives hung by a thread.

But if Solas succeeded...paradise awaited. A beautiful world where the Fade and the waking world existed as one. Dreams truly could become reality; wishes could be used to form a life unparalleled to any other. Things could be so much better than they were. A perfect world, a utopia. Were the lives of so many really worth it?

But...hadn't he created this world? If what Solas said was true, and I believe it was, then it was Solas who created this world in the first place, even if he didn't mean to. These lives came from him anyway. He truly was a god. He should have every right to take those lives away to form a paradise...

Everything was a lie. He was the truth. And I would follow him.

Before I could tell him, my mark flared up again. It seemed that we were running out of time. I gritted my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to swallow back the pain. I was NOT going to let this mark get in the way. I had come too far!

I sank to my knees again, unable to remain standing. I cried out once more, biting back another burst of pain.

"The mark will eventually kill you. Drawing you here gave me a chance to save you...at least for now."

I looked up at him in shock. My eyes watered. I felt a pain different than the one in my hand; a pain that cut deeper than any knife.

"Is that all I am?" I whispered. "Just another victim...just another casualty on your way to paradise?"

Pain flashed before his eyes, and regret.

"I never meant to hurt you. I had tried to stop myself, but it seemed I was too weak. I never should have let you get close to me," he confessed.

"That's not something for you to decide!" I shouted at him, and he took a step back. "You've orchestrated everything, that's true. You're the puppet master behind this whole game. But you don't you DARE thing that you could have controlled how I felt for you." I forced myself to rise to my feet, to meet his stunned gaze. "There are things you cannot control. And I am one of them. That's why you left, because you couldn't foresee how I would react. I was the one thing you couldn't control. You never foresaw me gaining this mark or falling in love with you. So don't start thinking you can control me now!" I got close to his face. "I am not giving up on you Solas. Var lath vir soledin!"

"I wish it could, Vhenan," he breathed quietly.

I screamed, this time falling backwards as my wrist jerked in pain. My vision swam and I screamed again and again in agony.

Solas's eyes matched my pain. "My love..."

He leaned forward and kissed me, pulling me closer into him and I could feel his lips on mine. I could feel the warmth of him around me. This wasn't a dream. This wasn't the Fade. This was real. The pain meant nothing. His eyes glowed and I felt the pain slip away to nothing. I hadn't realized what he had done. I didn't know until he pulled away and I felt apart of myself leave with him.

He had cut off my hand.

It didn't hurt, but I couldn't move. I was too stunned. Of all the things I had thought he would do to fix it, that wasn't one. I couldn't fight anymore. I couldn't do anything. He turned away, hiding the guilt I knew he felt. That was what surrounded him the most. He sought so desperately for control because every time he lost it, tragedy followed. He was just trying to undo his wrongs, and had set that as the only goal in his mind. That was the only thing he cared about. He just wanted to set things right. It had never occurred to him that he had come too far for things to ever be the same. The world, even if his plan succeeded, would never go back to what it was before.

"I will never forget you."

He turned away to leave.

No.

No no no nonononononononononononononono

NO

A moment before he stepped into the eluvian, he stopped, his eyes wide as he slowly turned to look at me.

"Don't leave me again Solas. I'm not strong enough," I whispered to him.

"V-Vhenan, what are you doing," he said in fear. "Get down from there!"

I inched backwards, just enough to keep him from coming any closer as he reached out to me. Behind me stretched a valley so deep that the river and trees below were colorful blurs. Wind whipped by hair around my face, now clear of the marks that once reflected who I was. But he had taken that away. And with it, he had taken me away.

"If you leave, then I have no reason to stay in this world either," I said, strangely calm. "I love you Solas. And I realize after seeing you again that I'm not really alive if I'm not with you. The Dread Wolf..." I laughed, stretched my arm out, the one I had left. "Again you've lost control. But what's it matter right? I'm just another pebble in your way. I'm going to die anyway once you reach your goals. What does it matter to you if I die now or if I die later?"

"Vhenan, STOP THIS!" he shouted, his eyes flashing again.

"NO!" I screamed back, tears flowing down my eyes again. "Either take me with you, or let me die. Because if I'm not by your side, I might as well be dead."

The silence that rang out between us seemed to stretch to eternity. I couldn't read his expression, and he couldn't read mine. There was nothing but the blissfully calm sound of the wind brushing through the leaves of the trees.

"I love this world," I said softly. "This world that you created and now hate...this world that you want so badly to destroy...it has so much beauty that I don't want to see fall away...so I suppose I'll just fall with it."

I leaned back, feeling open and free.

"NOO! VHENAN! LEVALLAN!"

I felt his hand grasp tightly around my arm, but everything went black. I was surrounded by nothingness, by an emptiness that was dark and cold. Was I dead? No. Solas had grabbed me, right? But what else could this be but death? But I still felt the pain in my heart. I still felt the daggers that stretched through my veins like ice and ripped me apart from the inside out. If this was death, then was I forced to endure this pain for eternity? Was that my fate?

"My dear...you're quite broken aren't you?"

A woman's voice, deep and motherly, rang out around me. I suddenly felt very calm and safe.

"Who...who are you?"

A chuckle. You know who I am child...

My eyes widened. Oh gods...

Solas pulled the elf away from the sheer drop to her death and into his arms. Her eyes were closed, but she was alive. Gods, what had she been thinking?! To fall to her death...

His grip around her tightened protectively. Why...why had this one woman interfered with his plans so much? Why hadn't he just let her go? Everything she had said was true. To achieve his plans, she would die. Yet seeing her there, standing on that cliff with glistening tears dripping down her cheeks, ready to plunge to her death and kill herself over him...

Maybe...maybe he could take her with him. It would be dooming her to a life of sin that could never be baptized or cleansed, she would carry the burden of a million lives on her shoulders with him for eternity. Was he willing to curse her to that life? He had told himself that letting her die was a blessing. He was giving her a gift by letting her die peacefully among friends. But he still couldn't let her fall.

He gently touched her cheek, caressing it with a sad smile. Fate really was cruel...

He felt her twitch in his arms. "Vhenan?" he asked gently. "Are you alright?"

She smiled widely, a laugh rising in her throat. She stood up from his arms, the mad grin still stretched across her face.

Fear struck at his heart, and his composure dropped. "No..."

His beautiful Vhenan stared up at him, but her eyes were gray and stormy.

"What's wrong Dread Wolf?" Mythal cooed from the lips of his lover. "Do you not like my new body?"

 **END**


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